Hell Sings for No-one
by Benevolent Psychopath
Summary: It has been years since millenium swept across England and the rest of the world in their mindless mission to destroy their one most hated enemy, 5 years since the Immortal Vampire Alucard returned to his master, and things seemed to be Quiet. Alucard's partner in the Field Seras, discovers that this may be far from the case while on mission in France.
1. Chapter 1: First Sighting

**Chapter 1: First Sighting**

It was a warm spring night in France, a blanket of grey-tinted clouds stretching silently over the coastal city of La Rochelle helping to maintain that constant soothingly warm temperature that made the country such a popular tourist destination. The constant sea breeze was gentle and quiet, barely a whisper above the various sounds of the night such as the various insects coming out of their hiding places they took up during the day, or the people in the town going about their usual business for this time of night, which mainly consisted of finding the nearest bar and enjoying themselves as much as their wallets would allow, or staying in with their families. Almost nobody was out on the streets anymore though, as the events of recent years were still very fresh in many people's minds, causing the age-old fear of walking at night to return once again en mass. In many respects, this fear was more than justified.

The waterways flowed by just as peacefully as they had done every single night of the year thus far, down from higher ground lying far to the east and through the long man-made channel leading to the ocean, on their way passing by countless riverside restaurants and fishing boats that had been moored for the night, along with what looked to be a storage complex with numerous warehouses and garage-like storage-rooms where people could hire out space to put the various odds and ends that they either had no room for at home or were just sick of seeing the sight of and wanted to sell somewhere away from where they lived. Disused vehicles made to move many of the heavier objects around littered the sight like giant toys that had long since exhausted the interest of the child playing with them, now just sitting there with only their slowly growing rust to keep them company.

It was here, in front of one of these supposedly secure warehouses that the still and calm of this unremarkable evening had been completely ignored in preference of boisterous violence, large smears of dark red blood staining the ground and the walls of the area at nearly every corner that there was to turn around, though there were no bodies in sight anywhere, only steaming patches of ground around scorched silhouettes where they once lay. Most of this collateral damage lay within and around one building in particular, which had been locked with perhaps the heaviest of locks in the entire complex (that now resembled shrapnel cluttering up the entrance) and tall metal gates that would have required huge motors to move even an inch to one side or another.

A white-gloved hand reached out from the thick darkness that had settled inside the large building to grasp one of these gates, the sleek-yet-muscular feminine arm taking a gentle hold of the 50-foot high and 3 metre thick steel sliding door and moving it to one side as casually as one might pull aside a shower curtain, a loud reluctant screeching coming from the gears and railings that it rested upon as it moved. For a few moments, nothing else happened, allowing just enough time for the door to collide noisily with the braces at the end of its tracks before the quiet was once again allowed to settle on the complex for a while as the arm retreated back into the darkness it had appeared from.

Then out into the cool moonlight stepped a beautiful example of a woman, curved in all the right places, clad in a mustard yellow uniform that consisted of a tight shirt that accentuated her large bust and a matching skirt that was, if anything, even tighter around her ample rear, and so short that is was bordering on indecent. A set of plain white tights that reached halfway up her thighs and black leather working boots completed her attire, save for two mis-matching armbands on her short-sleeved shirt; one was white and bore no symbol or insignia, white the other was the same red hue as the blood dripping down the inside of the door she had just opened, and bore the crest of a shield with alternating red and black squares emblazoned upon it, the mark of the Hellsing organisation.

The name-badge on her chest read 'Seras Victoria', above it laying a beautiful young face with deep red eyes and cute feminine facial features, her shoulder length blonde hair framing it perfectly.

Slung over one of her shoulders was a gun that had long since been put out of use in the military as it proved to be far too heavy to be wielded with enough effectiveness to warrant its use in the field. Well, at least for any human soldier anyway.

It was a gloriously designed version of an anti-tank rifle, with a barrel almost one-and-a-half times as long as this woman was tall, and a chamber for rounds that was so wide it almost resembled a tank loading chamber in and of itself. It was a far sleeker and lighter than the old version of it that had been designed by an old friend she had once trusted, a combination of both emotional pain and professional requirements deeming it necessary to take the next step up from it, but otherwise it looked fairly similar to its predecessor. It was hard to improve on a near-perfect firearm after all.

Taking a quick breath of the copper-scented night air, Seras walked calmly out into the open yard that sprawled out in front of the building, her quiet footsteps reverberating off the many metal surfaces in the complex. Even though nothing else would have appeared to be moving anymore (most due to her) to the average person looking at the scene, the young woman was far from your average casual observer, and so had a far more informed opinion on the matter.

Concentrating hard, the young woman closed her eyes and concentrated hard on her 'third eye' for a moment before opening them again as she had been taught by her master, her mind now picturing her surroundings in perfect detail as if from some immaterial observer, the blood in and around the littered bodies in her wake now glowing red as she searched behind crates and doors and disused vehicles with her new point of view without needing to move an inch from where she stood.

Soon enough, she picked up a tiny murmur of sound, low and very muffled, but a steady constant pulse that maintained itself with very precise accuracy, and it was rhythm that she knew very well: a heartbeat. Focusing on that sound, she let her mind's eye follow that sound, seeing the large crane that stood at the edge of the yard come into view as the sound grew louder. The mental image grew closer and closer to the cabin that stood near the top of the crane, the once quiet pulsing now so loud that it felt like a bass drum thundering in her ears, and through her inhuman eyes she saw blood glowing as bright red as a dying star as it flowed through the many arteries, veins and capillaries of her quarry as he crouched down inside the cabin in a desperate attempt to remain unseen.

Which a quick shunt of her shoulder, the large battle-rifle was in her hands and aimed at the cabin in an instant, Seras pulling the trigger immediately and launching a high explosive shell straight at her target where it exploded in a shower of fire, broken glass and burning metal, her strength once again proven by the fact that she was able to suppress the recoil of the giant gun entirely by holding it firmly in place.

Unfortunately, she caught sight of her target seconds later, still alive and kicking but missing part of his left arm, running desperately along the arm of the crane in an attempt to get away. She cursed under her breath, knowing that she couldn't risk a miss where he was or she would potentially be firing on a residential area. Tensing her legs, she leapt straight upwards onto the roof of the building she had just emerged from, running in parallel alongside the fleeing 'man' with her sharp fangs bared in irritation.

It would have been clear to even the most oblivious observer by now that her target was no mere human, his balance to precise, his vigour despite the obvious blood loss too great, and his fangs giving the game away as clearly at a large fluffy tail on a werewolf.

The individual she was chasing was a vampire, but hardly a worthwhile example in the grand scheme of things. Dressed in the garish baggy tracksuit pants and top that many kids still fooled themselves into thinking was cool, and all he had for self-defence was a handgun loaded with silver bullets and a few more magazines to reload this in his pockets, but even then he had shown himself to be a very poor shot, and even dropped one of these magazines while trying to reload. Sure he had the stereotypical perks that came with being a vampire, like increased agility and longevity and so on, but he had none of the capabilities of a higher vampire, like regeneration or the ability to summon familiars or even flight.

He was nothing like her.

All he was capable of doing was harassing a few of the groups that were on interest to her boss, and for that she had been sent to eliminate him before the problem had chance to grow. Her mission had only lasted half an hour so far, and it was very nearly over already. The only thing that had been keeping him alive thus far was his stockpile of infected ghouls that he had used to distract her, but they were hardly of consequence. And they were running out.

In fact, two ghouls managed to climb up onto the rooftop in front of her as she ran, their blank eyes staring soullessly at her as they groaned in their shambling un-death, but in reply she simply cocked her gun at one of them and damn-near vaporised him with a point-blank shot to the head, and as for the other (who had still been in the process of clambering up over the edge), she kicked his head clean of his shoulders like a football, sending it flying across the yard to collide with her escaping target's with a dull 'thunk', sending him somersaulting off the crane's arm to the roof of a nearby storage warehouse.

With another agile bound, Seras was arcing through the air in his direction, aiming to land right on top of him and kill him outright, but the little wretch managed to roll off the side of the roof at the last instant, vaulting off the side of the building to try and escape across the ground instead as she bent the thick metal of the roof inwards were had been laying moments earlier, the woman still having to tell herself that she wasn't fat even though she knew it was her own brute strength that had caused. Deciding he wasn't worth wasting the additional ammo on, she re-clipped the gun-strap of her over-sized rifle over her shoulder and tossed it over her back, leaping down to the ground and sprinting after him at a much faster pace than he could possibly hope to achieve.

He turned around at the last instant to fire off another volley of bullets in her direction, causing her to dodge out of the way effortlessly as they whistled past but still slowing her down just enough to keep him alive for a bit longer. Eyes wide and panicked, the cornered vampire wannabe caught sight of another group of his ghouls stumbling around the corner of one of the buildings close by. They appeared to be the former guards of the establishment, with walkie-talkies clipped to their belts over blue and black uniforms and sub-machine guns held somewhat loosely in their hands, but by no means anything more threatening than what he'd already thrown at her.

"Shoot her! Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!" he cried out in fear as he ran down another narrow gap between 2 buildings, the thoughtless husks turning to look at Seras approaching them as she sighed in mild annoyance, the ghouls raising their guns and doing just that.

Amazingly, despite their eyeballs having rotted away, they were actually better shots than their master, providing the female vampire some temporary entertainment as she closed in on them with a series of acrobatic flips and slides, a dark grin on her face as she clenched her hands into fists and began, quite literally, to tear them apart.

As for the vampire she was after, like the coward he was, he ran the moment her eyes left him, heading down a narrow alleyway between two of the building and coming out close to one of the higher outer walls of the complex, intending to vault it and make it away to freedom. For the first time that night, a smile broke out on his face as the notion that he might actually survive passed through his mind, tears trying to break pass his eye-lids at the thought as he ran for what remained of his life.

Halfway to the wall he stopped dead in his tracks, what little colour there was left in his face draining out of him instantly as he looked up and saw what was coming at him outlined against the full moon. It was already too late for him to do anything about it as well; his gun was empty, he was out in the open and had no hope of rescue now that the last of his ghouls were already being brutally disassembled behind him.

Having finished of the shambled wrecks of humanity that he ordered to kill her, Seras took a moment to wipe off the chunks of flesh, bone and brain that had accumulated on her hands, the bodies of the ghouls lying scattered around her with their anatomy equally scattered amongst each other's.

A few seconds later, she heard a loud scream come from nearby.

Recognising it as the voice of her target, she jumped clean over the building that lay in the direction she had heard it come from, looking below her as she glided through the air to see if she could spot any evidence of him.

She found it in the form of a steadily growing pile of ashes on the ground in the middle of the empty yard, nothing else visible in the entire complex save for her own work indicating anyone else had been there at all.

This caused her eyes to go wide in alarm. There was nobody else in Hellsing that had been assigned to this mission, and their best information had told them that Iscariot, Hellsing's Catholic Church funded 'rivals', had not known of this excursion, and had made no preparation to send anyone to intercept her or see to the job before she could.

Stunned at this sudden turn of events, she landed and placed her hand on the ground next to the ashes of her target and attempted to use her vampiric 'third eye' as she had done before, trying to identify the culprit of this or at least try to track him before he could get away. She wasn't exactly upset that the guy was dead, far from it as it meant less work for her, but the fact that he was killed so quickly and easily meant that someone or something with a lot of experience in dealing with this type of threat must have been present to carry this out, and was more than likely more than a mere human. Certainly a human would not have been able to have disappeared in as little time as it had taken her to get there.

Strangely, she sensed absolutely nothing from her keen senses, not even the faintest ripple of warmth that might give her a clue as to which direction this person had fled in. With every single creature she had encountered thus far, there was a small residual trace of them being there unintentionally left behind in their wake; even if it was someone being shot from a distance she could always tell which direction the shot had come from by letting the left-over 'memories' of the scene flow into her, like how the air had moved as the bullet arrived or which direction the sounds had come from, but there was just emptiness coming back to her now.

It was something that she couldn't really describe in words, but this genuinely scared her a little; this heightened sense had never failed once before to tell her just what had been there, even managing to identify her master with this technique, and he himself saying that he had never had it fail for him before. Not even Hellsing had been able to come up with an effective way to fool vampire senses yet, which did not bode well if somebody had managed it without them hearing about it.

Looking up from the smouldering ashes for a moment, she nearly jumped out of her skin as she saw someone standing atop the outer wall of the complex, outlined perfectly by the full moon, the young lady pretty damn sure that he wasn't there just 5 seconds ago. Springing to her feet on the spot, she quickly re-aimed her freshly-loaded gun at him as she took stock of the new stranger.

This person's dress could only be described as strange, like he'd just stepped straight out of some other time period and into hers without thinking to change his attire to suit where he was going. Every single item of clothing he wore was absolutely pitch black to the point that it shimmered in the moonlight, including his large broad-brimmed hat that bore a unique gold and silver emblem on the side of it, his skin-tight one-piece body-armour-looking-suit that covered every inch of him from his toes up to his neck and hands, his long black cape that bore a painstakingly well sown orange lining on the inside, the leather straps that criss-crossed over his chest and waist holding small scabbards for what she assumed were small daggers sheathed in them, and all of them put together couldn't compare with his unnaturally beautiful long flowing midnight-black hair, which exquisitely framed his breathtakingly handsome face. A bluish-purple jewel of some kind resided in the very centre of his chest-armour, breaking the vast canvas of blackness than was formed by the rest of his attire, though hardly detracting anything from it.

However, the most notable thing about him was easily the large sword-handle sticking up in plain view from over his right shoulder, the pommel bearing a silver, black and gold insignia that reminded her of a skull while both the handle and pommel were otherwise as black as everything else he wore.

As she looked at him, she couldn't help but be reminded a little of her master in the way he looked: her master was almost always dressed in the fine clothing he'd encountered during the Victorian period, caring very little for the stark contrast it made to modern dress, and here was someone else who came wearing another very distinctive outfit, who even as he stood there in plain sight did not trigger any of her vampire senses.

The two of them stood silently appraising each other for a short while, neither of them breaking eye contact with the other. The cool night breeze blew gentle past them as they remained there, neither of them seeming willing to make the first move.

Then the black-clad man on the wall smiled warmly and tilted his head forwards, the motion obscuring his eyes with the rim of his hat.

"Well done." he spoke in a deep soothing voice, the kind of tone that puts virtually all men who hear it at ease without even trying, and woos women who listen to it with the same ease, making Seras blush noticeably as she heard it.

Before she could muster up a syllable in reply, the man took a step backwards and disappeared over the wall in an instant.

Leaping up after him, Seras took a fraction of a second to reach where he was standing, and yet when she looked over the edge to locate him, he was gone, her keen senses once again drawing a complete blank as to where he had gone as if any trace of him had simply been wiped away as easily as markings on a whiteboard.

As she stood there looking down at the empty air below her, the hidden ear-piece she wearing crackled into life.

"*Crackle* Seras, our mission window is coming to a close. Have you neutralized your target? *Crackle*"

The vampire woman turned back to look down at the pile of ashes slowly skittering along the ground with the night wind, still a little disappointed that it wasn't her doing.

"Umm, yes sir. Target has been neutralized." she replied, deciding to keep quiet about this occurrence until she returned to headquarters. Hopping down from the wall to the outside of the complex, she began running for the coastline where her retrieval-up point lay. Nothing particular interesting happened during her trip to get there, and she was picked up without a fuss as well, but for the entire flight home she couldn't help but feel uncomfortable.

Someone was out there who was either strong enough or smart enough to counter-act a higher-vampire's powers of detection, and maybe even other abilities that she hadn't used in that mission, something she hadn't seen since the events of Millennium. The thought of someone being out there who could potentially become as big a threat as that, was terrifying. For the moment, she tried to rest after her mission, and thought hard on what to tell her superiors, and if this was something her master had encountered before but not spoken about.

As the helicopter she rode in flew away into the distance from the calm French beaches, the handsome black-clad man she'd met stood watching her leave with his arms folded from the top of a tree-branch, his pale skin catching the moonlight perfectly.

"See you soon." he whispered under his breath before turning and leaping back along the rooftops into the distance with unnatural agility, his figure once again vanishing almost as soon as he started moving.


	2. Chapter 2: Reporting In

**Chapter 2: Reporting In**

"What do you mean you couldn't sense him?" came the cool dignified reply from the Seras's boss as she informed her of the latest arrival to their already growing list of rising concerns, rubbing the back of her neck shyly at having to deliver more bad news at such an inopportune time. To say that things had been a little rough at Hellsing in recent years would have been the understatement of the century.

This woman was none other than Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, the rightful leader of the Hellsing organization, a devout expert on the occult with a lifetime of hard experiences to back it up, generations of gathered resources and knowledge at her disposal, and one of the few human beings in history that had managed to stare down a vampire so strong that he was responsible for wiping out entire nations, and win.

The years had not been as kind to her as they had been to the Vampire girl, as not being an 'immortal' the suit-clad lady was not entitled to the same naturally indefinite longevity and eternal youth that the relatively young vampire was. An eye patch now covered her left eye beneath a set of slightly dark-tinted glasses to mark just one of the many hard battles she had fought in her time, the tell-tale wrinkles that signified her slow but certain ageing showing beneath her eyes and around the rim of her mouth, and where years ago her voice would have rung out loud and clear as a bell, there was now the unmistakable rasp of a tired throat added to it, her long-standing habit of smoking fine cigars finally making its consequences known to her.

One thing that had not changed in all that time however was her unshakable resolve. Every word she spoke carried an iron-fast conviction that would rattle the weak-minded to their very core, which relayed her very will to whomever she was speaking to without the slightest room left for misinterpretation or argument. If the hardships of the world had taught her anything, it was to never show weakness however slight, and as such, even as a middle-aged woman, she had still maintained her capacity to fight, never without a weapon that would be lethal to all but the strongest of vampires at any minute of the day, her frame no longer that of the trim young woman she used to be, but instead that of a mature woman who had spent years training to maintain the abilities of that same young woman, and largely succeeding.

Human she may be, but weak she was not.

This remarkable woman was currently sitting down in her chair behind her desk, her elbows resting on the table with her fingers inter-laced with each other, patiently waiting for her officer's answer. It was another notable sign of her getting on years. Not too long ago she would stand in all of her meetings bar the ones where it was expected of everyone to sit. Her brow was furrowed in a deeply concerned frown as she digested the news brought to her attention in Seras's report.

"It was like there was nothing there to see or hear at all Sir." Seras replied apologetically, having changed out of her yellow uniform and into its blood-red equivalent before coming to speak with her, doing her best to explain what exactly happened or didn't happen, "I could see he was there in front of me, clear as daylight, but when I tried to get a fix on him with more eyes than a human has like master taught me to, there was nothing there for me to get a fix on. I tried all the different techniques for sensing that someone is present, but every single one of them came up empty, I couldn't even tell that embody had been standing where he was when I was standing right there myself the very next second."

Integra sat back in her chair for a moment, folding her arms and sighing, taking a few moments to take this disturbing new information to heart before asking her next question.

"When you saw him face-to-face, what kind of impression of him did you get?" she inquired, looking at Seras of the rim of her glasses, "What type of creature would you take him to be?"

Seras had to stop and ponder about that for a moment.

Thinking back to the handsome man she saw standing on top of the wall several hours ago, she got no indication from him that he was a creature anything like the Captain of Millennium's forces, i.e. a werewolf, as the Captain has given off a very distinct signature under the gaze of her 'third eye', and he certainly didn't appear to have the physique she would expect for a werewolf either. Since defeating the captain, she had learned that one deciding factor in a werewolf's strength was quite simply their size and build when in their human form, with stronger werewolves being so powerful that the large muscles and frame of their alternate forms actually began to show in their human alter-egos as they grew closer and closer to the bestial side of their very being. The man standing on the wall had been muscular yes, but sleek and slender, and carried himself with a certain grace and fluidity that was most certainly not characteristic of a werewolf.

He was definitely not human, otherwise there would have been no way for him to have made his way inside the storage complex over the high brick walls and kill her target, and then both leave back over these same walls before she returned without her knowing he was there and then return to meet her without her even noticing he'd re-appeared. Even the late inhuman regenerator of Iscariot, Alexander Anderson would not have been capable of such a feat. If it had been a human doing this with the assistance of magic, then she would have at least detected it by the time she got there, as she had managed to become very adept at picking up on even the faintest of traces of it under her master's newly resumed training. Certainly at that close range there would have been no way to hide it. As it was, there was no hint of any kind of incantation being used, holy, demonic or otherwise.

This left the unnerving possibility of whomever this person was being a vampire just like herself. From what she had seen, this would certainly fit his figure and his apparent speed, and would definitely explain how he would have been able to take out her quarry with so little effort, as he would already be very aware of his weaknesses and how to take advantage of them, and in all honesty it wouldn't have taken that much of a vampire to kill that pathetic excuse for one of her kin down. However, this would not have been enough to explain his ability to disappear so completely, as both she and her master knew that when they teleported from one place to another as she assumed he was doing, it left a residual trail behind them that could be followed back to them if a strong enough vampire were to concentrate on its signature, like a large shark displacing water around it as it moved forwards; it was a drawback that they had taken advantage of many times to hunt down rouge vampires that had attempted to flee from them. In this case there was no trail there to find at all, as if he had simply evaporated into thin air of his own accord out of sheer willpower alone.

"I honestly don't know what he was." Seras answered truly, "But I do know that he was at least capable of moving like a vampire if nothing else."

The anxious expression on Integra's face spoke louder than words, her eyes downcast and a gloved hand raised to support her chin as she fell silent once again. The facts that Seras had relayed to her seemed to be counter-acting each other more and more as she thought on them. They knew that whoever this person was, he was capable of masking both his presence and his movements from a vampire, but at the same time was somehow able to fight on par with vampires and transport himself instantly from one place to another seemingly without the aid of magic, meaning that in theory he shouldn't need the ability to hide himself from them.

The most likely case would be that he was a vampire as well, as these powers reminded her lot of what she had witnessed Seras and Alucard doing before now. If that were the case however, then to be capable of outrunning Seras Victoria made whoever this was a very real danger in and of itself. More to the point, the fact that he was in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time to take out her target during her mission in a different country seemed like far too good timing to be considered a coincidence.

This brought two more unpleasant possibilities to mind: one, it may have been the first contact with some newly formed group intending to make their presence known, and two, this may have been a test-run for some kind of new weapon or magic-based technique created by whoever was responsible for this to circumvent the advantage that two high-powered vampires currently gave Hellsing.

Neither of these were ideas that she liked the sound of, but she knew she couldn't afford to take any risks by making assumptions about a new unseen enemy.

England and its military had taken a severe battering in the events of the Millennium crisis, and although pretty much everywhere else in the world was suffering from the same affliction at that point, it had not eased any pre-existing political tensions from before, leading to many small factions attempting to take advantage and seize power in the sudden opportunity that had been presented to them, finding themselves very quickly put back into their place when Hellsing deployed its two trump cards. The knowledge that there was a way to somehow avoid the biggest threat to an invading force on its way to English soil could have potentially disastrous consequences for everyone. Even the most powerful Vampire on the planet could not be everywhere at once.

The problem needed to be dealt with quickly, quietly, and completely.

"Thank you for your report, Seras." Integra spoke up calmly, not lifting her eyes to meet her gaze just yet.

"Yes Sir." Seras replied raising her hand up to her head in a respectful salute, standing there obediently as Integra unfolded her arms and got to her feet, looking to have come to a decision about something. Integra walked around to the front of her desk so that she stood next to Seras, taking a cigar out of her pocket and lighting it before taking a deep drag from it, slowly breathing it back out shortly after. Her head turned down to look at the floor again as she rubbed her free hand against her temple, and glanced over at Seras.

"Seras, stay there for the moment. I have a feeling I'm not going to like what I'm about to hear." she said as much to herself as to Seras, before, straightening up and calling out in a clear voice. "Alucard!"

As soon as the syllables left her lips, a thick consuming darkness more opaque than Indian ink began to spread out across the floor from beneath the carpet, creeping along the soft surface like a sickly black tumour that kept on growing and seeping through the fabric until it was over 3 metres in radius, the lights in the office dimming and flickering of their own accord as the single most powerful weapon in Hellsing's entire arsenal made his appearance into the room.

Rising up out of the spreading black pit on the floor came a dark-red Victorian-style broad-brimmed hat, followed by long pitch-black hair and a pair of elegantly designed orange-lensed glasses sitting atop a pale-skinned nose, soon to be followed by a set of razor sharp teeth as the emerging being grinned malevolently at the two women standing before him. As this figure continued to rise up out of the floor, his matching red Victorian coat and neck-tie were revealed, the tails on the coat flapping lightly in a non-existent breeze as they removed themselves from the darkness beneath him, the white gloves on his hands bearing arcane pentagrams on the back of them as a mark of his servitude to the Hellsing family. Beneath his coat, he wore a dark black suit over the top of a white dress-shirt, his black trousers and knee-high black boots being the last things to leave the lightless area on the floor before it suddenly halted its expansion and contracted, flowing sideways into his boots little by little until it was gone from sight, reabsorbed as calmly as a human draws in a breath.

There in the centre of the room stood the single most infamous, violent and outright destructive Vampire of them all: Alucard.

Unrivalled experience in combat along with a deep sadistic streak that surpassed even his own time as a Vampire and power enough to take down entire armies on his own comfortably, single-handedly responsible for the eradication of the entire ottoman army that invaded his original homeland along with his own armies shortly after becoming what he currently was, wiped out virtually the entire Millennium organization of artificially created and enhanced vampires twice over, utterly devastated the airborne ninth crusade of the catholic church of nearly 3,000 men without even breaking a sweat, and responsible for killing numerous other Vampires that had been genetically designed from the ground up to kill him; that was not a man standing there in the private office, this was an unparalleled monster.

"Yes, my master?" he spoke in his distinctive deep thick voice, removing his hat and glasses and holding them over his heart respectfully as he waited for Sir Integra's orders.

Integra noted out of the corner of her eye that Seras's face had brightened up noticeably upon Alucard's entrance, but considering how well the nigh immortal vampire had treated her during his time teaching her to acclimatize to being a vampire after how unceremoniously she had been turned into one, it was to be expected. The ancient vampire's mind was virtually unreadable to most people at the best of times, but she got the distinct impression that he regarded Seras as the daughter he never had, trusting her to choose her own path with very little of his influence outside of helping her to hone her abilities.

"We have a problem." Integra stated clearly, looking the imposing creature dead in the eye without so much as a hair being dislodged at his admittedly stylish entrance, "Someone out there has found a way to fool a Vampire's senses."

"So I've heard." the red-clad immortal replied with a hint of intrigue in his voice, his signature smile still in place.

"I know that you don't need me to tell you how serious of a threat this poses to national security at this point in time, and I do not intend to wait and stand idly by whilst one of our enemies tries to grab a hold of this advantage before we can eliminate it. Seras reported that all of her natural vampiric abilities to detect someone nearby besides her naturally enhanced vision and hearing were completely negated. Is there any method that you know of that can accomplish this?" the white-haired woman questioned him, the Vampire tilting his head back thoughtfully as he pondered it for a moment, the lights in the ceiling catching on his glasses and causing the orange lenses to seemingly glow as he hummed to himself.

The fact that he had needed to pause and think on it for a while at all deeply concerned Integra, her expression remaining stoic as she waited for his answer, Seras standing by her side and looking over at Alucard with the same childishly curious expression that a toddler might show its parent when it is first presented with a stick-insect. She both hoped that it was something that it was something that he knew how to counter-act, and dreaded the fact that this could very well be the natural ability of some deadly creature Hellsing had yet to officially encounter.

"Nothing that would work for a human." Alucard finally responded after a good 2 minutes of silence, still appearing to be staring away into nothingness even as he spoke.

"What do you mean 'for a human'?" Integra asked, raising her cigar back to her lips and taking another long drag from it as Alucard met her gaze again and elaborated for her.

"Humans have been my prey for centuries. Many of the lesser dogs that dare to call themselves true vampires are addicted to their blood like it was heroin, ignoring what it means to be a real member of my kind, but even they are fully capable of seeing a man through a solid kilometre of concrete of there is even a drop of blood left in him." he said with an experienced sureness, his smile widening at the thought of the endless oceans of blood he had witnessed flowing through so many humans' veins over the years, "The currency of the soul. A true vampire understands that to drink another's blood is to consume them body, mind and soul, and to allow a vampire to drink your blood is to let yourself become a part of them as they in turn become a part of you. The soul of a human can never be hidden from a vampire as it is what we thrive on, what we exist to gather and lay claim to. It would be like trying to hide the absence of air from a human, only less effective."

Integra listened closely as he laid this out to her, now understanding a little more clearly why all of their attempts to try and assemble a team of humans wearing specially designed armour that could in principle avoid Vampire detection had never worked. However, this did confirm one of her nagging fears about this new mystery player, and made it all the more clear to her that he had to be dealt with immediately.

"Go on." she pressed him, the dark haired immortal standing in front of her having paused for a moment to let this information sink in.

"There are certain powerful beings out there that have accumulated so much natural energy during the course of their existence that they can saturate a Vampire's senses almost to the point of blindness, though I can't think that such a powerful being would have troubled himself with such lowly scum as Seras's target." Alucard continued, taking a moment to look over at the busty blonde-haired woman that had been standing not far from Integra this entire time, catching her eyes and giving her an affectionate smile, "I also doubt it that such an exceptional Vampire as Seras Victoria would not notice this happening."

Blushing adorably at the high praise directed at her, Seras nervously fiddled with the gloves on her hands, dutifully maintaining eye contact with her master for a short while longer before he turned his attention back to Sir Integra, who had settled back into an expression of deep concern once again.

"If we can't determine what he's doing to hide himself from a vampire based on what knowledge we currently have, then our only option is to bring him in and found out for ourselves before anyone else can." she announced, as much to herself as to the two vampires in the room with her, straightening up to her full height as she continued, "Iscariot are currently far too weakened to pose an major threat to us on a large scale, but if they get wind of this, they could make a move first and try to reverse engineer whatever this person is using, possibly even allowing them to make targeted strikes at Hellsing or the English military without us ever knowing about it. I want both of you to go and speak to Mires and see if he can provide you with some way of capturing this individual alive, and leave to bring him in the moment we had a solid lead on our mystery vampire killer. As much as I would be happy for you to just kill him and put the matter to rest, we can't ignore the enormous potential gain we could get from interrogating him."

Hearing this, Alucard smiled and bowed reverently to Sir Integra, Seras doing the same except without the hat and glasses pressed against her chest obviously.

"As you wish, my master." the tall black-haired vampire replied, replacing his broad hat back on his head and his orange-lensed glasses back upon his nose, turning around on the spot and walking in the direction of the door that lead out of Integra's office with his red coat trailing extravagantly through the air behind him. Seras hurried up to his side and began walking alongside him in short order, following him out of the doors as they opened in front of him and closed behind him without him needing to raise a finger, leaving Integra to her thoughts as the two of them walked down the heavily shadowed empty hallway.

"Tell me about this man you met Seras." Alucard spoke over to Seras before they'd gone five paces from the door, "I know you've spoken to my master already, but I want to hear it from you as well. What did it feel like when you were in his presence?"

Blinking at the sudden question from her master, the blonde-haired girl scratched the underside of her chin thoughtfully as she tried to think back to what was going through her head when she saw him, before blushing again as she remembered how handsome the man had appeared.

"He was….striking." she answered, avoiding eye contact with Alucard as they walked, hoping he wouldn't notice.

"Easy on the eyes I take it?" he replied with an amused chuckle, Seras pouting at him and looking away for a second out of embarrassment, her face now bright red all over.

"Y-Yes…he was…other than that it was like I could see and hear him like I could for anyone else, but when I tried to get any kind of perspective on him with my vampire senses all I got was an empty patch of space where I could see him standing. It was quite disorientating if I'm honest." Seras confessed, the feeling of unease she'd had at just how easily this unknown figure had managed to evade both her rigorous training and her natural instincts as a vampire now returning in full force. It sent a cold shiver up her spine to know that this same person could probably pop up again at anytime, anywhere during her next mission, and she would have no idea he was anywhere near her before he showed himself. For all she knew, he could stand right next to her and not have to worry about being spotted for as long as he wanted to conceal himself.

"Hmmm." was the only response from her master, his expression utterly unreadable behind his reflective glasses as he mused on this for a few moments, "I seem to recall encountering what you've described before, many years ago, long before I ever came to serve the Hellsing family, but I can't quite place where..."

"He was also dressed rather strangely as I remember." she pointed out, recalling his distinctive all-black stylised body-armour-suit and cape that would have stuck out a mile even at a Halloween party. It didn't strike her as something that would be particularly of interest considering that most powerful individuals tended to not care what others thought of them and so dressed in strange ways anyway, but it may have been the uniform of some organisation or cult that her master had come across previously.

"Oh? How strangely?" the black-haired immortal inquired, Seras taking a sideways glance at his own rather ostentatious attire and deciding to choose her words to describe the man she had seen carefully.

"Well, he was wearing this weird all-body suit of black armour that I'd never seen the like of before." Seras explained, "There was also this funny blue jewel set into the centre of it, but I can't think why it was there as it didn't seem to be doing anything more than stopping him from blending in completely. The inside of his cape was also this flashy bright orange colour, like he wasn't even trying to hide himself from anyone, yet could do it with no effort whatsoever. Also, he was carrying this really large sword with him strapped over his back; I couldn't see any evidence of a firearm on him anywhere, not a single holster or magazine clip. None of it seemed to add up at all. Do you have any idea why he'd want to dress like that?"

Seras remained quiet as she waited for her master's response, still walking down the corridor and trying get her blushing under control, but all she got from her master was silence, not the tiniest murmur coming from her side. Turning her head to see what was the matter with him, she was surprised to see that he was not walking alongside her as he had been the previous instant, but had in fact stopped dead in his tracks a few meters back down the corridor, his blood-red clothes illuminated by the bright moonlight filtering in through the large windows of the Hellsing mansion.

His face was now wearing a look of genuine surprise as he looked straight ahead into nothingness, his long black hair flitting to and fro around him as he remained put.

"Master?" Seras said quietly, turning to walk back towards him hoping that she hadn't accidentally said something to upset him.

"This sword…." Alucard said quietly, the corners of his mouth turning up in the beginnings of a dark grin that slowly grew until virtually all of his pointed teeth were showing, "…did it have a symbol of a hollow skull on the hilt?"

The younger vampire's eyes opened wide in astonishment as she heard this, she hadn't revealed this detail to Integra at all as she didn't think it meant anything, after all it was just a badge of a skull, "Yes master, but how did you know?"

The long drapes of hair that had been gently swaying back and forth around the tall immortal vampire at a gentle pace now began to writhe about in the air excitedly, the outline of his figure starting to glow a faint dark red colour as he let out a husky pleasured breath, like one an animal would make upon seeing an enormous feast laid out before it. Moments later, Alucard's shoulders began to shake as he began chuckling darkly to himself, his protégé taking a few steps backwards looking on worriedly at him as his hair grew more and more agitated, snaking about over his extravagant clothing as his chuckles grew into open bawling laughter. The faint glow spread up along the very edges of his form, revealing the writhing multi-red-coloured essence that composed it as he threw his head back and began roaring out in unadulterated rapture even as clear saliva dripped from the rows of dagger-like teeth that lined his wide-open mouth, the sounds of his manic delight echoing down the halls of the entire mansion, Sir Integra biting her bottom lip in concern as it reached her ears even inside her office. The few guards that were stationed inside the grounds felt cold sweat drip down the back of their necks as his cackling reverberated past them, some visibly trembling at their posts despite their disciplined training.

It was a good five minutes before the Vampire's loud cackling finally quietened enough for Seras to hear herself think again, and he was still wearing that same bloodthirsty maniacal grin on his face that she remembered seeing before.

It was the same one he wore when he had faced Alexander Anderson in London, when he'd finally found someone who would give him an interesting fight.

"Oh yes." Alucard breathed in a low growl, his smile still spread wide across his face, "I know him. I know exactly who he is. How could I ever forget such a person as him?"

"Then who is he?" Seras asked nervously, Alucard looking over at her and chuckling wickedly to himself once again and continuing his walk down the hallway, not answering the younger vampire until he had passed her by. He only gave her five words.

"Now that would be telling."


End file.
